Hi! I'm Niko.

Where to begin? I was born in the US, but my mother was Moroccan of French origin and my father is Greek. I grew up mostly around New York city, but I've lived in Chicago, Washington DC, Beijing, Lyon, İzmir, İstanbul and our tiiiiiny little village outside of Volos, Greece.

I am currently a PhD candidate at the Leiden Institute for Area Studies, where I am writing my dissertation on language contact in mediaeval Central Asia. I'm very excited about it, and I'm looking forward to getting to know other people working either in linguistics or on Central Asia and the Middle East.

I am (maybe too) easy going. I love people, especially when accompanied by food, music, and conversation!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

I'm on couch surfing for material and philosophical reasons:

Material: To find places to stay while travelling or searching for long-term apartments.

Philosophical: To meet and interact with interesting, out-going people and get to know the area I'm staying from someone who has been there and done that, so to speak.

Interests

Languages: I particularly love Turkic and Iranic languages, but I also do a lot of research on minority language and slang in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire. My specialization is in language contact. Ask me about it some time!

Cooking: I mostly cook French, Moroccan, Sichuanese, North Indian, and Turkish food. I am obsessed with spices, not only as flavors but as objects of study! I have a deep interest in food anthropology, culinary borrowing as cultural contact, and the history of the spice trade.

Singing: I trained to be an opera singer for several years in high school before I decided I wasn't cut out for it. I still love to sing, and I was a member of a Russian folk choir for 5 years in college.

• singing
• diy
• cooking
• history
• languages
• learning languages
• sewing

Music, Movies, and Books

Books:

"The Left Hand of Darkness", Ursula K. LeGuin (or almost anything by her)
"Ragtime", E. L. Doctorow
"Candide", Voltaire

Music:

Folk (all regions, but especially: Balkan, Georgian, Corsican, US/Canadian)
South Asian Ghazals, Bollywood Film Music
Immigrant/Gypsy Punk
Emo, Glam Punk, Pop Punk
Dark Cabaret
Klezmer
Classical (especially choral)

Movies:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 1 and 2
The Fifth Element
G.O.R.A.
Lawrence of Arabia

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I dunno if it's amazing, but I am one of the world's few non-native fluent speakers of Uyghur. I guess learning that was an accomplishment, but some 20 million people speak it as their native language, so "amazing" is a stretch :-p

Teach, Learn, Share

I would love to practice any of the languages I speak or am learning with people. I'll be starting to learn Dutch soon, too, but I haven't quite had the time yet!

What I Can Share with Hosts

I'd be more than happy to provide language training or cook in exchange for lodging!

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Serbia, Switzerland, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

China, France, Greece, Netherlands, Turkey, United States